In the dramatis personÆ of this play the "gentle astringer" is omitted, who, though he says but little, has a better claim to be inserted than Violenta, who says nothing. Mr. Steevens remarks that her name was borrowed from an old metrical history entitled Didaco and Violenta; but Shakspeare more probably saw it in the running title of Painter's Palace of pleasure, whence he got his plot of this play, and where the above history occurs in prose. The title is borrowed from a proverbial saying much older than the time of Shakspeare. Knyghton has preserved some of the speeches of Jack Straw and his brother insurgents; and in that of Jack Carter we have this expression: for if the ende be wele than is alle wele. The orations of these heroes were made up of proverbial saws, a proof of the great influence they must have had with the common people. See the Decem scriptores by Twysden, col. 2637.

ACT I.

Scene 1. Page 187.

What Mr. Steevens calls the inelegance of the king's disorder is not to be placed to Shakspeare's account; for it is specifically mentioned both in Painter's story of Giletta, and in Boccaccio himself. It is singular that the learned critic should not have remembered this.

Scene 1. Page 188.

The explanations of this speech appear to be too refined; and Dr. Warburton's, as usual, particularly so. The meaning is simply this:—where strong and useful talents are combined with an evil disposition, we feel regret even in commending them; because, in such a mind, however good in themselves, their use and application are always to be suspected.

Scene 3. Page 217.

A reconsideration of these words have suggested the necessity of cancelling both the notes, for the clown is not a natural, but an artificial fool.

Scene 3. Page 224.

This strange and faulty language deserved notice. It should have been, or were you so to both.

ACT II.

Scene 1. Page 234.

He means that he shall remain at home to lead out ladies in the dance, till honour, &c. In Titus Andronicus, Act II. Scene 1, Demetrius speaks of a dancing rapier. The custom of wearing swords in the dancing schools is exemplified in a curious story related in Newes from the North, 1579, 4to, where "Pierce Plowman sheweth how his neighbour and hee went to the tavern and to the dauncing schoole and what hapned there," in these words: "Now was there one man of our company that was as deaf as a doore naile. When we were come into the schoole; the musitions were playing and one dauncing of a galiard, and even at our entring hee was beginning a trick as I remember of sixteens or seventeens, I doo not very wel remember, but wunderfully hee leaped, flung and took on, which the deaf man beholding, and not hearing any noyse of the musick, thought verily that hee had been stark mad and out of his wit, and of pure pittie and compassion ran to him and caught him in his armes and held him hard and fast. The dauncer not knowing his good meaning, and taking it to the wurst, and having a dagger drew it out, and smot the man a great blowe upon the hed, and brake his hed very sore." Another illustration of the subject is too interesting from the picture of ancient manners which it exhibits to stand in need of any apology for its insertion. It is from Stafforde's Briefe conceipt of English pollicy, 1581, 4to. "I thinke wee were as much dread or more of our enemies, when our gentlemen went simply and our serving men plainely, without cuts or gards, bearing their heavy swordes and buckelers on their thighes insted of cuts and gardes and light daunsing swordes; and when they rode carrying good speares in theyr hands in stede of white rods, which they cary now more like ladies or gentlewomen then men; all which delicacyes maketh our men cleane effeminate and without strength."

Scene 2. Page 249.

The covert allusion mentioned by Mr. Ritson is, in all probability, the right solution of this passage; but the practice of marrying with a rush ring may admit of some additional remarks. Sir John Hawkins had already, in a very curious and interesting note, illustrated the subject; and it must appear very extraordinary that one of the subsequent notes should question the practice of marrying with a rush ring, on the grounds that no authority had been produced in support of it. This must therefore be explained. The fact is, that the author of the doubts had never seen Sir John Hawkins's entire note, which had originally appeared in the edition of 1778, but was injudiciously suppressed in that of 1785. In the edition of 1790 there is only a brief and general statement of Sir John's opinion, and this led to the doubts expressed. In 1793 Mr. Steevens restores a note which he had already cancelled, and with all its authorities before him, permits them to be questioned; but there are many who will comprehend his motive.

The information from Du Breul (not Breval, as misprinted) TheÂtre des antiquitez de Paris. 1612. 4to, is worth stating more at large. The author tells us that in the official court of the church of Saint Marinus, those who have lived unchastely are conducted to the church by two officers, in case they refuse to go of their own accord, and there married by the curate with a rush ring. They are likewise enjoined to live in peace and friendship, thereby to preserve the honour of their friends and relations, and their own souls from the danger they had incurred. This is only practised where no other method of saving the honour of the parties and their connexions can be devised. A modern French writer remarks on this ceremony; "pour faire observer, sans doute, au mari, combien etoit fragile la vertu de celle qu'il choisissait."

With respect to the constitutions of the bishop of Salisbury in 1217, which forbid the putting of rush rings on women's fingers, there seems to be an error in the reason for this prohibition as stated by Sir John Hawkins, but for which he is not perhaps responsible. He says it is insinuated by the bishop, "that there were some people weak enough to believe, that what was thus done in jest, was a real marriage." The original words, as in Spelman's councils, are these: "ne dum jocari se putat, honoribus matrimonialibus se abstringat." Now unless we read "adstringat" there is a difficulty in making sense of the passage, which seems to mean, least, whilst he thinks he is only practising a joke, he may be tying himself in the matrimonial noose. It is to be observed that this consequence was not limited to the deception of putting a rush ring only on the woman's finger, but any ring whatever, whether of vile or of precious materials.

In Greene's Menaphon is this passage: "Well, 'twas a good worlde when such simplicitie was used, sayes the old women of our time, when a ring of a rush would tie as much love together as a gimmon of golde." But rush rings were sometimes innocently used. Thus in Spenser's Shepherds calendar, eclog. xi. mention is made of "the knotted rush rings, and gilt rosemaree" of the deceased shepherdess. Again in Fletcher's Two noble kinsmen, Act iv.;

Tib and Tom were names for any low or vulgar persons, and they are usually mentioned together in the same manner as Jack and Gill, &c. In the morality of Like will to like quoth the devil to the collier, Nicholas Newfangle says,

In the old song of The shepheard's holyday, we have,

Thomas Drant in his translation of Horace's Arte of poetrye, 1567, 4to, has Englished fricti ciceris et nucis emptor, by Tom and Tib, &c.; and in A satyr against Satyrs, or St. Peter's vision transubstantiated, 1680, 4to, are these lines:

Scene 3. Page 257.

Mr. Tyrwhitt regards the latter exclamation as ludicrous, in consequence of Helena's limitation of one mistress to each lord, and would therefore give it to Parolles. Mr. Mason, on the contrary, is of opinion that the words but one, mean except one; that the person excepted is Bertram, whose mistress Helena hoped she herself should be; and that she makes the exception out of modesty, as otherwise it would extend to herself. Of these two opinions the first is the most probable, deriving considerable support from the one in the preceding line; for if Shakspeare had meant except one, he would have written "a fair and virtuous mistress." Helena's exception as stated by Mr. Mason might indeed have been made on the score of modesty so far as regarded her beauty; but she could not with propriety admit that she had no virtue.

Scene 3. Page 257.

Mr. Steevens should have added that this was a proper name for a horse, as well as an appellation for a dock'd one. "Their knavery is on this manner; they have always good geldings and trusty, which they can make curtailes when they list, and againe set too large tailes, hanging to the fetlockes at their pleasure."—Martin Marhall's apologie to the belman of London, 1610, sign. G. Curtail is not from cur and tail, as stated in some dictionaries, but from the French tailler court.

ACT III.

Scene 6. Page 298.

The meaning of this phrase has been very well ascertained, but its origin remains to be traced. Is it a metaphor borrowed from the beating of a drum, or does it allude to the drumming a person out of a regiment? There can be no reference to a real person, because in many old writers we find both Jack and Tom Drum.

ACT IV.

Scene 3. Page 323.

An allusion to the game of blindman's buff, formerly called hoodman blind.

Scene 3. Page 326.

Mr. Ritson will not admit this to be a fool kept by the sheriff for diversion, but supposes her one of those idiots whose care, as he says, devolved on the sheriff when they had not been begged of the king on account of the value of their lands. Now if this was the law, the sheriff must have usually had more than one idiot in his custody; and had Shakspeare alluded to one of these persons, he would not have chosen so definite an expression as that in question; he would rather have said, "a sheriff's fool." Female idiots were retained in families for diversion as well as male, though not so commonly; and there would be as much reason to expect one of the former in the sheriffs household as in that of any other person. It is not impossible that our author might have in view some real event that had just happened.

Scene 3. Page 327.

In Whitney's Emblems, a book certainly known to Shakspeare, there is a story of three women who threw dice to ascertain which of them should first die. She who lost affected to laugh at the decrees of fate, when a tile suddenly falling, put an end to her existence.

Scene 3. Page 329.

This is an allusion to the story of Andromeda in old prints, where the monster is very frequently represented as a whale.

Scene 3. Page 333.

The quart d'ecu, or as it was sometimes written cardecue, was a French piece of money first coined in the reign of Henry III. It was the fourth part of the gold crown, and worth fifteen sols. It is a fact not generally known, that many foreign coins were current at this time in England; some English coins were likewise circulated on the continent. The French crown and its parts passed by weight only.

Scene 4. Page 339.

In King Henry VI. part 2. Act V. we have "la fin couronne les oeuvres." Both phrases are from the Latin finis coronat opus. In this sense we still use the expression to crown, for to finish or make perfect. Coronidem imponere is a metaphor well known to the ancients, and supposed to have originated from the practice of finishing buildings by placing a crown at their top as an ornament; and for this reason the words crown, top and head are become synonymous in most languages.

There is reason for believing that the ancients placed a crescent at the beginning, and a crown, or some ornament that resembled it, at the end of their books. In support of the first usage we have a poem by Ausonius entitled CORONIS which begins in this manner:

And of the other, these lines in Martial, lib. x. ep. 1:

The mark which was used in later times for the coronis has been preserved in the etymologies of Isidore, lib. i. c. 20. It is this, ; and in some manuscripts of that writer and . In other places it has these forms, .

Scene 5. Page 343.

The Devil is often called so by Saint John.

ACT V.

Scene 2. Page 349.

"This," says Mr Steevens, "is an undoubted and perhaps irremediable corruption of some French word." Yet the name is obviously La vache, which, whether really belonging to the clown or not, seems well adapted to such a character.

Scene 2. Page 351.

The text is perfectly intelligible, and requires no conjectural amendment. The clown calls Parolles's letter a pur; because, like the purring of the sycophant cat, it was calculated to procure favour and protection.

THE CLOWN.

He is a domestic fool of the same kind as Touchstone.